


Out of Sync

by wormsForthought



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Future Doctor, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24891580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormsForthought/pseuds/wormsForthought
Summary: Five times Jack didn't travel with the Doctor+ One time he did
Relationships: The Doctor/Jack Harkness
Kudos: 35





	Out of Sync

**White-Red Sky**

Jack was brooding. He didn’t do it often anymore, and when he did he usually managed to convince himself that he was just “admiring the scenery” or some similar half-truth. He was peacefully alone on a distant world two lifetimes into his own future, laying in a field of tall purple flowers that reminded him of lavender but smelled more earthy, face turned toward the red dwarf sun.

For this planet, it had been a long time since anyone had lived there at all, save for the incredibly beautiful vegetation and the microorganisms in the oceans that some junior archaeologist managed to bring a few years back (with the way those microorganisms were multiplying, Jack wouldn’t be surprised if something more sentient would develop soon, and who knows, maybe he would stay there until that happened).

Jack ran his fingers through his too-long hair and sighed deeply, the rich scent of the flowers relaxing him further but not quite managing to fully distract him.

Jack was… mourning, in a way. He supposed it was different from how those with finite lives mourned, detached from death but all more familiar for it. Their name had been something melodic that he was just barely able to pronounce, a member of the third reigning species of this very planet. They were a successor to the crown (never let it be said that Jack didn’t have style), with eyes like the glittering dark waters that reflected the white-red sky above.

He would do this sometimes, go places he'd lived and remember those that made those places _home_. Not often- sometimes it got to be too much even for his immeasurable age- but it was undeniably nice to just _exist_ for a moment, without the weight of those very years staring back at him.

“Jack?” A voice from behind him said, inquisitive and oh-so-familiar. By now he would recognize the Doctor anywhere. This doctor, suspenders and soft blonde hair and rainbows and inventiveness (he remembered the Doctor liked to be called “she” in this incarnation) was still so young. Old in her own way, yes, but young in comparison. Jack was pretty sure he knew why she was there, but he wasn't going to be the one to push that topic of conversation.

“Hello, Doctor. Fancy meeting you here.” Jack looked up at her with a brilliant smile, because she was _the Doctor_ , and he would always love her, even if nowadays they were more like two trains passing each other by rather than colliding asteroids.

“Huh. I think the TARDIS needs some recalibration. I wanted to talk to you about what you told my fam about the lone cyberman, but I think that was an older version of you.” Ah, so this Doctor was as direct as he remembered, Jack wasn’t sure if it was refreshing or disconcerting.

“If the TARDIS brought you here than she thought you needed to be exactly here.” Jack said, then added, deciding to match her directness, “and this version of me is much older than the one you met last.”

“You don’t look like it.” She frowned at him, glancing over him with a critical stare that was as familiar as her cool touch. “Actually, if I didn’t know better I would think you just celebrated your 35th birthday.”

Jack couldn’t help but laugh at that, relaxing back onto his elbows. “And do you? Know better?”

"You mess with my time senses." She frowned again, pocketing her sonic and sitting down beside him. “Do you remember this? This me and what I-“

“Of course.” Jack didn’t open his eyes. This Doctor didn’t like being touched much and he couldn’t trust himself not to reach for her if he saw the puzzle-needed-to-be-solved look she was no doubt giving him. “You wanted to tell him- me- why you had to save Shelley. Two equally bad options with disastrous consequences you’re going to have to shoulder alone.” She deflated beside him, some of apprehension draining at his nonchalant tone. “Except, not, because you have-“

“I can’t put them in that kind of danger.” She cut him off, her tone forcing his eyes open and locking him a staring contest.

“That’s not really your decision to make.”

She looked away first, and even before she spoke Jack could tell she was going to change the topic. That was okay with him. He wasn’t going to push for anything with her. She might be the Doctor but she was not _his_ Doctor. She doesn’t know him like this.

“What are you doing here, then? It’s the middle of, well, nothing in either direction for a long time.”

“Remembering.”

There was a long moment of silence that Jack tried not to decipher. In a way that hurt a little to think about, he understood that she came to him for answers but stayed for the comfort of someone she knew she could trust. Whether she trusted him not to hurt her or not to think less of her for needing comfort in the first place, he still didn’t know.

Jack had many years behind him by now, but he supposed all that was still just a blink of the eye compared to the years ahead of him.

“Thank you.” She whispered, low and private, her hand dropping to his cheek.

The kiss she gave him was soft, a gentle press of the lips that said everything about her past and betrayed nothing of her future.

Once the hum of the TARDIS had faded, Jack whispered back a quiet promise of his own.

~ ~ ~

**A Little Shop**

The thing was, while the Doctor absolutely didn’t like travelling alone, he did it quite a lot. Sometimes it was because all of the room in the TARDIS were empty, but even if they weren’t he would often find himself off on some adventure while his friends were asleep or visiting their family and friends. After what happened on their “vacation” a few weeks back, however, Doctor decided he was going to limit his wandering-off-alone adventures for a little while. At least as long as Donna was with him, anyway.

So, with Donna by his side munching on a local delicacy she was eating off a stick, some sauce dripping down her chin, telling him to slow down every five minutes when he tried to pull her in different directions of local vendors, the Doctor strolled the streets of the Sunshine Market beneath a blue sky with two suns.

“-and the spiraling architecture on that Dome up ahead was first invented by Lady Qu-raffe, nicknamed the Daughter of Two Suns, symbolizing the-“

“Oi, what’s that?” Donna asked, pointing to a large blue archway with a picture of a bouboile on the top. Of course, Donna wouldn’t know what a bouboile was, and to her it probably looked like a dolphin with a turtle shell and two large tusks.

“Oh!” The Doctor smiled, already pulling her in that direction. “It’s kind of like an aquarium, but instead they put a group of visitors into a trolley and take you on the tour of the ocean. Its absolutely beautiful, because most of this planet is actually made up of just the ocean, and the continent we are on is basically the only large one, with a few small islands more down south.”

Donna complained loudly when an attendant told her that she couldn’t bring food into the trolley, but instead of throwing it away she stuffed the remaining dough into her mouth, making the attendant give her a mildly disgusted glare.

He smiled brightly at her, letting her (right) lead him into the fairly big trolley with see-through walls. It reminded him of the same type of structure as they had on planet Midnight, but there was nothing poisonous about this planet’s atmosphere or its ocean (although, technically speaking, the pressure at the kind of depth they were going to would be crushing without appropriate technology, but that was just technicalities anyway).

Sitting beside each other, with Donna at the “window seat” (“all seats here are window seats”), the Doctor was content to just enjoy the scenic ride. However, he couldn’t resist giving Donna the _real_ story of the shipwreck they passed halfway while she swatted at him to be quiet.

The best part, however, was the absolutely adorable little shop on the other side. Donna had been baffled by the concept of traveling the expanse of an entire planet in three hours at a speed where they could still view the scenery, but this planet was admittedly tiny. But, the little shop made up for the short ride.

While Donna was looking around the trinkets section, insistent on getting a gift for her granddad, the Doctor heard a familiar voice.

“Put it away, we’ve just-” _This wasn’t happening._

But of course it was, because time actually did hate him, and this was Captain Jack Harkness standing in his full glory in this little shop, talking quietly with a blond man with wild eyes.

“ _We_? Who did most of the heavy lifting?” The other man asked, touching the rack of t-shirts next to him.

“I did!” Jack hissed, obviously annoyed, running a hand through his wet hair.

The blond man waved his hand dismissively, making Jack sigh. “How long until-”

The Doctor didn’t hear the rest of that conversation as Donna bounded back, holding what looked like a key chain with a bouboile pendant.

As he was paying for Donna’s key chain with not-exactly-his money, the Doctor looked back to Jack. Jack, who didn’t know him yet. Jack, who looked young enough to be in his early twenties. Jack, who had the blond man pinned up against a mirror. Jack, who wasn’t yet wrong. Jack, who met his eye in said mirror and smirked without a touch of recognition clouding his eyes.

The Doctor winked back at him, guiding Donna back to the TARDIS. Oh, how he wished he could get to know that Jack better, be near him without the _wrong-wrong-wrong_ feeling suffocating his senses. But, the Doctor guessed, some things can only move forwards after all, even for him.

~ ~ ~

**Rest Here a While**

Technically speaking, Jack was on a job. Some rich aristocrat from a planet with a funny name had hired him to retrieve a stolen gem. Except, the aristocrat stole it from a friend of his because of some kind of familial feud (distantly, he though this was exactly the sort of thing John would like: find the gem, return it, get paid, steal it back).

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it. Of course, Jack had already tracked down the thief and stole it right back (adding to both his stories of heists and weirdest sexual experiences), and he should contact the old aristocrat, but he was actually quite enjoying his stay on this… planet? moon? asteroid? It didn’t really matter.

Although, this whole ordeal hadn’t been as distracting as Jack hoped it would be. There were still so many names and memories flashing behind his eyes, not enough time yet separating him from all the hurt.

Jack took a drink from his cup: it tasted kind of like herbal tea but had similar effect to caffeine, so, by extension, Jack felt comfortable calling the establishment he was sitting in a coffee shop. It wasn’t, exactly, but most things weren’t exactly like other things.

Put poetically, of course.

Jack was twirling the deceptively small gem between his fingers when he heard a painfully familiar norther accent speak from behind him. “Jack?”

Jack dropped the small gem into his cup of not-coffee. He turned around slowly, feeling almost like he was being pulled. Before he fully came to face the man he thought he would never see again, Jack managed to smooth the surprise into something that would hopefully pass as indifference.

“What are you doing here? I just left you and Rose-”

“-and he’s still there. Actually, if I remember correctly, I’m doing a brilliant job giving Rose the best snog of her life.” Jack smiled at that, mentally patting himself on the back. 

The Doctor- his Doctor but not _his_ anymore- looked over him with a critical eye, making Jack brace for what would come next.

He couldn’t- he _couldn’t_ take this Doctor telling him he was wrong. From the next Doctor it hurt, but Jack understood that he was a different person, and although he loved both of them, the big ears and leather jacket and “everybody lives” would always have a special place in his heart.

So, before the Doctor could say anything, Jack cut him off. “Anyways, this has been fun, but I really should go. Intersecting timelines and all that. Don’t worry, I’ll be more careful to not cross my own timeline next time.” Jack gave the Doctor what he hoped was a bright smile, dunking his fingers in his not-coffee and fishing out the little gem. Right about now, trading the thing for some credits and getting blackout drunk sounded like the best idea he has had in a long time.

“Wait.” _Damn him. Damn him and his-_

Jack stopped in his track, muscles contracting but he didn’t dare walk further. _This wasn’t fair_. The Doctor knew what that voice did to him, especially coming from the Time Lord.

“Look at me.” Jack did, not even thinking of disobeying. “What happened?”

Jack swallowed, giving him a dry grin. “Spoilers.” The Doctor glared, making Jack chuckle a little. “Honestly, that will be very funny to you in a few years.”

“Jack.”

“You of all people should know not to ask questions about your own future. Gets messy.” Jack thought he might be okay, actually, as long as the Doctor didn’t touch him. Jack… wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t start shouting or crying or some embarrassing combination of both.

It really had been a long week (month, year, life, whatever).

But, this Doctor has never been that good at reading social ques (or maybe he was too good at reading just Jack specifically), so when he reached a hand to Jack’s face, Jack all but crumbled at the touch. It was soft and familiar and reminded him of early days in the TARDIS, with Rose, running from many things but sometimes running _towards_ something too-

“Please don’t.” Jack gasped quietly, tears threatening to spill from his closed eyes (when did he close them?) and it really had been too long.

Jack cleared his throat when the Doctor pulled his hand away, a million and one emotions crossing his face too fast for Jack to decipher. Then, maybe because he really was still angry or maybe because he just thought the Doctor needed to know not to try, he added, “you can’t save him.”

~ ~ ~

**Gilded Age**

The TARDIS was quiet.

Clara was sitting on the railing, trailing her Doctor with a critical eye as he moved about the controls, not talking. The whole situation was weird enough, because the Doctor was never this quiet, but the mechanical whirring and organic sloshing of the TARDIS also sounded subdued.

Swinging her feet, Clara glared at the back of the Doctor’s coat as he… well, she wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing.

They’d had a brilliant day up until three hours ago, strolling the streets of New Pompeii, when they’d gotten pulled into a near-catastrophe scenario. That was normal- exciting even (the Doctor had said something about the people asking for a disaster when they named the city Pompeii, kind of like naming new ships “Titanic” which Clara couldn’t help but agree with).

There was something that Clara compared to a nuclear plant, except the energy they were trying to use was significantly more dangerous than that. When the Doctor had heard what kind of energy it was, his eyes went hard and he’d masterfully landed the two men in charge back in their place. Admittedly, Clara didn’t understand much about the kind of physics the Doctor was lecturing about, but even she knew that building nuclear power plant in the middle of a busy metropolis was a terrible idea.

Then, thing got worse as the extrapolators or stabilizers or whatever (the things that meant to prevent the whole operation from going “boom” Clara's brain provided helpfully) started to fail, fast.

When the two men who used to be in charge, swiftly replaced by the Doctor, informed the government of New Pompeii of the situation (after some persuading from Clara), a man in a WWII coat had run into the room, delivering some more bad news.

The Doctor didn’t exactly seem to be surprised that the man was there, although Clara had to introduce herself to the lad who would certainly give Danny a run for his money with a smile like that.

Everything after that happened in a quick succession. The internal alarms were raised to “mauve” and the building was evacuated, the Doctor yelled at Clara to get back into the TARDIS (which she ignored), the Doctor yelled at Jack to… well, he didn’t actually get to finish that lecture because the radiation had began to leak, melting absolutely everything, and then-

Jack had shoved them out of the room when the building shook, deadbolting the lock.

Clara then witnessed something incredibly strange. The Doctor and Jack shared a look through the thick glass before Jack turned away and walked further towards the source of the radiation, pressing some buttons and pulling a few leavers, releasing everything. Instead of shutting her eyes, Clara was transfixed beside the Doctor, watching as the red explosion was pulled towards Jack. It was almost like he was sucking it in, preventing it from spilling out of the room.

Then there was a beat of absolute stillness after which Clara saw Jack dissipate into tiny gold particles. She was reminded of the time she watched the Doctor regenerate, but this time there was no new face wearing ill-fitted clothes. The gold particles hung in the air, the only remnants of the man Clara had just met.

The Doctor had turned off all the alerts, an alien stillness mixed with human rage. Clare wouldn’t dare repeat the things he had said to the officials that had come into the room. The Doctor simply pulled out an odd-looking jar too big to fit in his pocket, walked into the room where Jack had just died in, and collected the bigger portion of the gold particles still flitting about.

That alien stillness hadn’t left the Doctor by the time the two of them got back to the TARDIS, the quiet hanging around them.

Clara hated it. “So, are you going to tell me what happened back there?”

The Doctor paused. He was standing beside a strange tube-like thing that he had raised from the floor of the control room. He reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out the jar that contained the gold particles that once were Jack Harkness.

The Doctor looked at Clara for a long moment. She knew he was trying to say something without saying it, but she didn’t understand. Instead, she offered him a reassuring smile, which turned out to be enough. Clara jumped off the railing, joining the Doctor around the control as the tube thing sunk back into the floor, melding with the metal and looking like it hadn’t been there at all.

Later, long after Clara and Bill, long even after Graham, Ryan, and Yaz, the Captain would come back. The stardust particles pulled back, reforming the perpetual fact that was Jack, returning to him the life that he was forced to have.

Jack was grateful, in a way, but asked the Doctor to drop him off on New Earth, leaving her with a too-soft kiss.

~ ~ ~

**Always There, Somewhere**

Sometime around visiting the fourth museum with the Doctor, Amy decided she ought to learn to like them. It’s not that she didn’t _already_ like them, or that she didn’t find them interesting, but going to a museum with the Doctor was kind of like being dragged to a candy store by a toddler who, instead of buying any candy, would just point at various box displays and tell you he already had those flavors.

Sometimes going to a museum brought about a proper adventure (Amy still shuddered with a mix of excitement and fear when she remembered River and the Weeping Angels), but mostly it was just a few hours of wandering about an empty museum. Apparently, the Doctor had a thing for breaking into places just to look at things he used to own once upon a time.

This time, thankfully, Rory came along so she could at least snog her amazing husband against some very expensive antiques (the Doctor still kept talking over them, but Amy definitely didn’t have a problem with that).

Pulling the two of them down a curved hallway lined with paintings of battles she didn’t recognize and the Doctor didn’t explain, the Doctor pulled out his psychic paper, piquing Amy’s interest.

“Oi, so are we here for a specific reason? An adventure?” She had Rory spin her around a thin pillar, gaining a little more pep in her walk.

“No. Maybe.” The Doctor spun on his heel, brown hair flopping into his face. He handed Amy the psychic paper, which had “he’s at the New Museum of Southern Lirsay” scrawled on it in barely readable handwriting.

“Is it from River?” Amy asked, handing the paper back to the Doctor.

“It’s not her handwriting.” The Doctor said, giving an evil side eye to a painting of woman in military clothes.

“Who’s ‘he’?” Rory asked, having read the message over Amy’s shoulder.

The Doctor paused his glaring match with the portrait to give the both of them a gleeful smile, which Amy returned with enthusiasm. “No idea!” Adventure, that’s more like it! “I’ve been tracking a strange energy signature all over this museum, and it appears to converge at the end of this corridor.”

“What sort of strange? Like a fun ride at a waterpark kind of strange, or like meeting a clown holding a shovel at midnight kind of strange?” Rory asked, but the Doctor was already up ahead.

“Why would you meet a clown at midnight, anyway?” Amy asked, pulling her husband to catch up.

“You can never be too cautious of clowns, Amy. They can’t be trusted.”

Amy let go of Rory’s hand in favor of walking beside the Doctor, who was using his sonic to scan the statues that lined the circular end of the hallway. He was muttering to himself quietly, but Amy recognized an edge of distress to his voice.

“Doctor?” She asked gently while looking the statues over. They weren’t Weeping Angels, but rather looked to be statues of the same military people on the paintings further up. “What’s wrong?”

“This isn’t… I can’t feel him… but the artron energy…”

Amy and Rory exchanged a glance, watching as he quickly moved from statue to statue. “Doctor?” Rory asked when the Doctor stopped in front of a specific statue, staring up at it with a blank face.

Amy decidedly did not like this.

“Step back.” Rory quickly pulled Amy’s arm, the both of them taking a few steps back. His voice was too blank, too emotionless.

The Doctor pointed his sonic at the statue, changed some sort of setting, and from one moment to the next the marble of the statue exploded into a million pieces.

Except, the explosion revealed a tall man in a WWII jacket, looking somewhere in his 30s, dry marble still sticking to him.

Before the man could fall to the ground, the Doctor caught him effortlessly in his arms, showing off strength Amy didn’t know he had. The man from the statue looked heavy and, well… dead. He looked dead. Not mummified like Amy would expect, but dead nonetheless.

“Doctor?” Amy asked softly, noticing the gentle way the Doctor rubbed the marble from the stranger’s face.

“I didn’t know.” He said, although Amy wasn’t sure if that was directed at her or the dead man in his arms. “I left him alone for too long-” He was cut off by the sound of a deafening alarm and flashing mauve lights, which Amy had learned was absolutely not good.

“Guys, maybe we should, you know, go, before-”

The three of them were running back towards the TARDIS before Rory could finish the sentence.

The Doctor had beelined it straight for the medical bay, ignoring Amy and Rory’s questions, setting the man down onto a bed and quickly flitting about for various tools.

“Hey Doc,” Amy tried again, “what’s going on?”

The Doctor attached a few wires to the stranger’s chest, who had somehow lost his shirt (although the coat was hung over the back of a chair by the bed), but then apparently changed his mind and reached for something that looked like a bulky scanner, running it a few inches above the stranger’s chest. The Doctor snaped his fingers for a blue flimsy-looking thing beside Rory, who handed it to him with a grumble.

Then, almost as impossible as the Doctor himself, the strange man sat up with a painful gasp and glassy eyes. Amy watched in shock-terror-fascination as the man struggled to breathe for a few minutes before collapsing back on the bed, dead again.

 _“What the fuck?”_ Rory whispered beside her, and Amy couldn’t help but agree.

The Doctor flinched but didn’t draw back from the man, powering up the blue device.

Amy kind of wished she had left the room after that, because the next few times the man woke up he spent a few minutes coughing up liquid marble before dying again, only to repeat the process. Rory had turned his face towards her shoulder after the second time while Amy stood shock-frozen, essentially forcing herself to watch something that would give her nightmares for a long time.

The Doctor, for his part, kept his face completely neutral, guiding the stranger towards a bucket when needed, rubbing his back comfortingly, and using the blue device.

After what Amy counted to be eight rounds, the Doctor switched off the blue device and set it aside.

“That’s the worst of it now.” The Doctor had informed them after he collapsed on the chair beside the bed. Not taking his eyes off the stranger, he added, “you didn’t have to stay.” With his voice back to being full of emotion, Amy recognized the unspoken ‘thank you’ and she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she only stayed because her body refused to move (she suspected Rory had stayed because she did, but she wasn’t going to tell him that either).

Amy, finally able to move, nudged Rory towards the Doctor, the two of them enveloping him a warm hug that, for once, their friend accepted without complaining.

It only took a few more moments for the stranger to wake up, and this time he stayed awake. His eyes quickly glanced over the room, settling on the trio. “Doctor?” He asked, American accent startling Amy. “What-”

“You should be dead.” Rory said, a little panicked. “You were dead, and then you weren’t, and-”

“Rory! You can’t just say that to people.” Amy scolded him, but the stranger didn’t seem to mind all that much. His eyes ran over both Amy and Rory, a playful smirk finding its way onto his lips.

“Captain Jack Harkness.” The man- Jack- grinned, leaning back onto his elbows, and Amy could almost forget the past fifteen minutes with the inviting way Jack looked.

“Stop it.” The Doctor said, but he was smiling again, something that Amy could vaguely recognize as relief settling into the air around him. 

Jack grinned back, but then frowned a little. “What happened? Why am I here?”

Fidgeting a little, the Doctor asked, “what do you remember, and when is this for you?”

Jack seemed to think it about for a moment. “I was at the Third Battle of Solpan, and I’ve seen this face before.”

“Ah, you’re ahead then. This is the first time I’ve seen you.” Amy wasn’t fully following the conversation, but she did notice the strange emphasis the Doctor put on “I’ve” and she liked to think she was good at subtext, but she couldn’t figure this one out.

The Doctor recounted the story of the psychic paper, the museum, blasting open a statue, and ended with asking Jack how many times he gets buried alive, which Amy suspected, but she didn’t like to have it confirmed.

“More often than you’d think.” Jack said with a touch of sadness that was quickly replaced with a flirtatious smile. “So, where are we?”

“The vortex, currently!” The Doctor jumped up with excitement, pulling all three of them out of the med-bay without actually touching any of them, down a short corridor towards the control room. “But we could be anywhere, the whole of space and time.” Hand on the control, the Doctor looked to Jack who was just in his trousers, barefoot and no shirt, coat swung over his arm.

Jack smiled, giving the Doctor coordinates. The Doctor frowned but didn’t actually say anything as the TARDIS rattled off.

The four of them exited the TARDIS once they landed and Amy found herself under alien suns. Yes, suns, because there were three. Two normal looking ones close together, with a smaller, blue-tinted sun almost half a sky away. They were standing in some kind of field of pale pink grass, although she could see a bustling city with skyscrapers not far up ahead. Turning around, her eyes followed a rock road leading to a medium-sized cottage.

“Stay.” Amy turned around, finding the Doctor holding onto Jack’s arm, eyes locked.

“No.” Jack smiled softly, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“Please.”

“Not yet.”

The Doctor released Jack’s arm, letting him walk away towards the cottage. The three of them watched until Jack reached the door, knocked, and was greeted by a figure too far away for them to see (although Amy suspected that the Doctor did, in fact, see who it was and was apparently satisfied by that knowledge because something in him settled).

“Who was that?” Amy asked back in the control room, watching the Doctor flit about after Rory had gone to bed claiming too much stress.

The Doctor paused, not quite meeting Amy’s eye. “Someone from another life.”

~ ~ ~

**I Know You Well**

The Afreavian Alignment of the six planets orbiting the Yaku sun was arguably one of the most beautiful things Jack had ever seen. It was breathtaking from any viewpoint on the six planets, but the uninhabited dwarf planet furthest from Yaku had a special tower just for viewing the Alignment.

Every three hundred and five years on the largest planet in the Yakuun system, the second planet closest to Yaku where the majority of the people lived, the six planets aligned together, illuminated by Yaku. Each of the planets had different atmospheres, appearing to be different colors from space, and because of a complex interaction between gravitational forces, all the planets were essentially clustered together.

From the viewing deck on the frozen dwarf planet of Hao, for eleven glorious minutes the streaky rays of the sun diffused against the edges of the largest planet, which was lit up from the opposite side by the planet that followed it (with no liquid water and covered mostly with structures for tourists), casting a double shadow on the next two planets, which created a rainbow-like effect.

The story was that no one person saw this natural light show the same, which Jack could absolutely believe.

It had been exactly three hundred and five years in his own personal timeline since he last saw the Alignment, which had also been the first time.

Jack had been surprised when the Doctor- ginger hair and painted nails- showed up in the little coffee shop he had been working in on Earth sometime in the 23rd century, insistent on stealing Jack away for the night. By then Jack had been old enough to be surprised by something he hadn’t done before, and was exponentially more surprised by the fact that it was the Doctor’s first time seeing the Alignment too.

Dates with the Doctor are always memorable, but they didn’t usually grate so thoroughly on his heart for years on end.

Jack wasn’t alone on the viewing deck of Kao, but he did feel alone. Hands pressed against the railing, Jack allowed himself to just exist for a moment. A memory of purple fields underneath a white-red sky; a cottage with Trivina and Paulette near a cosmopolitan city; 21st century Earth and a Welshman who could make the best coffee, all flashing behind his eyes as he waited for the Alignment to begin.

“I didn’t think I’d made that much of an impression.” A pair of hands settled next to him, the voice a melodic combination of 18th century and 53rd century Irish accents.

Jack almost didn’t want to look over, half-afraid that there would be no one there if he looked over. It had been so long since he had met the Doctor, and even longer since he had met a Doctor he didn’t know.

“I’ve always been one for beautiful things.” Jack sighed, finally looking over. The Doctor was wearing a thick green dress reaching to about the knees with a golden waistcoat, complimenting their sepia-brown skin, paired with tall boots and a ring on their right thumb. In profile, the lights around reflected off their cheeks and eyes- the most physically familiar thing about the Doctor. Regardless of how many times the Doctor had regenerated, the eyes would always tell of many years, of the birth and death of a thousand stars. 

“We are attracted to things that are familiar.”

Jack smiled brightly. “Did you just call me beautiful?”

The Doctor looked at him then, eyes swirling with time Jack could swear he could almost see. “Of course.” They whispered, leaning down to capture Jack’s lips in a slow kiss. Jack’s hands instantly came up to the lapels of that gold jackets, feeling the soft material under his still-calloused hands from the life he had just left. He felt the Doctor’s long fingers at the base of his neck, pulling him upwards into the kiss. The Doctor pushed Jack back about an inch, allowing him to breathe. “Watch now.” They whispered, low and private, holding Jack’s shoulders and turning him towards the Alignment seconds before it began.

Jack stood mesmerized, eyes glued to the lights of the planets, leaning back against a not-yet-familiar chest providing familiar comfort as Jack forgot how to breathe. Jack let himself be held and taken away to a far away place in his mind where he only ever dares to wander when the Doctor or the TARDIS are there with him.

About halfway into the Alignment, the Doctor had sent out questioning tendrils of his mind to Jack, spreading from his back and his shoulders where the Doctor’s hands rested, a cold warmth calming Jack’s senses.

“So, when is this for you?” Jack had asked once the Alignment ended, detangling himself from the Doctor’s grasp but not moving away.

“Same as you. We’re all caught up now.”

“Yeah?” Jack looked up at the Doctor, something he couldn’t yet read, but would no doubt soon learn to, in their eyes. The two of them had walked away from the viewing deck along with the others, but the Doctor had pulled them away from the others, guiding them towards what looked like a broom closet.

Jack laughed when the Doctor opened the door to reveal the TARDIS, a few brooms leaning against the sides. Standing in front of the now open TARDIS door, the Doctor gave Jack a meaningful look. Hand on his chest, not pressing or pushing, just resting there. “Stay?”

And, there were many times when the Doctor had asked him the same question and he’d said no every time after the first. They had always been a little out of sync, if not in time then in what time did to them, moving in different directions. But now, with everything that has happened between them and with more sure yet to come, Jack dared to believe.

Meeting the barely-tamed wild in the Doctor’s eyes, Jack grinned.

~ ~ ~

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, this was essentially a result of my thoughts about the concepts of "possibly endless future Doctors" and "complicated relationship changing between platonic and romantic" so enjoy this messy stream of consciousness, I guess? Toodles~


End file.
